


At Your Doorstep, Gently Knocking

by nhixxie



Series: Canon Compliant Fics [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst angst angst angst, It's their first year wedding anniversary and I am in great pain, M/M, Turn away if you don't like angst, don't look at me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhixxie/pseuds/nhixxie
Summary: These are the seven times Alec Lightwood waited for Magnus Bane.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: Canon Compliant Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929223
Comments: 11
Kudos: 159





	At Your Doorstep, Gently Knocking

**Author's Note:**

> Happy first year wedding anniversary to Magnus and Alec Lightwood-Bane and to us, who all love them both to the point of pain. I'm like, so fragile right now I don't know how I'll be able to turn up for work tonight, oh god
> 
> I'm @nhixxie on twitter and follow #nhixxiefic as well.
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time Alec waits for Magnus, he doesn’t even know he’s waiting for him. 

He does so in his very wedding, clad in colors that in dark humor, signifies what he feels. What he’s waiting for, truthfully, is death. The passing away of the one thing that both shackles him and yet has the ability to set him free. 

There was once an Alec Lightwood that was more than a hammered, glinting sword swung in the name of familial honor. He was gentle, once. Soft. Combed his fingers through blades of grass, a steady crawl towards the finger tips of another boy. 

Today, that boy dies.

Until of course, Magnus walks into his wedding.

Magnus Bane, Alec thinks as he apologizes to Lydia and stares the man down across the room, has a knack of knowing what Alec wants before he even realizes it himself. So, like he does, almost blindingly every single time, Alec trusts Magnus.

He crosses the threshold and kisses Magnus Bane deeply, eyes closed, heart in his throat. 

The gentle boy rejoices. 

The second time Alec waits for Magnus, he had fucked up.

Everything is a screaming symphony of _Jace_ in his brain. _Jace is gone, Jace might be dying, Jace needs to be found, Jace needs to be saved._ And it takes the misstep of burning the one person that he wants to keep close, of exploding at him with furious enragement, and realizing exactly what he had done a moment far too late, for him to realize what kind of derangement this all is. 

So, he stands at a distance, watching as Magnus molds a ball of magic between his graceful fingers, and waits. 

“Magnus,” he says thickly, his anger more to himself than anything else, “I’m not good at apologies.”

He waits a beat, sees the lines on Magnus’ back tense at the sound of his voice, an acknowledgement of his presence. 

“But I’m sorry.”

“Continue.” He says testingly, words tight.

“I’m,” Alec tries again, shaking his head slightly, “I’m really sorry.”

“For?” Magnus prods as if he’s talking to a child, still swirling magic about, refusing to see him, and it makes Alec bristle.

“Look, will you cut that out for a moment?” Alec asks and the ball flies towards him, narrowly missing his head. 

Magnus may be four hundred years old, but even he isn’t exempt from a little pettiness. If Alec isn’t a bundle of guilt and remorse and worry, he would have smirked at the discovery. 

Alec feels words leave his mouth, hazy within his ears, and watches as Magnus throws on a hoodie and zips it up to his neck. He starts walking away, unfazed by the things he says, and Alec has never been good with words, so he does the thing that works better for him—action. 

He catches Magnus’ arm, and it works better than any pleading sentiment he could’ve ever said. His soft grip slides down to his wrist where it sits nervously; the gentle boy with wandering fingers.

“I’m sorry.” Alec says again, easier now.

Magnus softens. 

“You’re forgiven.”

Magnus’ hands come up to his collar, unfurling it tenderly, and it pulls the first smile from his lips in what it feels like a long, long time. He feels the urge to reach for Magnus and kiss him, but now is poor timing, not when he had just been forgiven.

So, like he always does, he waits. 

The third time he waits for Magnus, it’s in the back alley of The Hunter’s Moon, at the heel of winning a battle. 

The victory is empty, and at the surface Alec drinks to their win, but deep down, he drinks to nothing at all. He curls his lips into a small smile, something for the people around him, but one that barely burrows through the thickness of his skin. The beer tastes on his tongue what pallid looks to someone’s eyes. 

He finds Magnus like he knows the point to which he stands in every place, in every universe. 

And even his laborious tale of magic depletion remedies sounds like the softest tune in Alec’s ears. Anything is he says is gentler than the curt quips and disdained roll of the eyes he had gotten the past week. Walls that were once laid to waste for Alec have been built back up to keep him out. Magnus has shown Alec how easily he could pretend that he doesn’t care for his presence.

Alec could handle going their separate ways. 

But he wouldn’t survive in the face of Magnus’ indifference.

So, Alec waits in the back alley of The Hunter’s Moon. 

If it means waiting there forever, he would. 

The fourth time Alec waits for Magnus, he enfolds their hands together, and waits for him to awaken.

It teaches Alec to never trust complacency. 

For a while there, an image of what a life with Magnus would be like burgeons before his eyes like a paradise within reach, and it’s as tempting as any happy ending would be. He suspends belief for a moment; forgets the world they live in by covering everything with sheets of white, decadent optimism. 

How easy it is to fool oneself.

All it takes is a bit of hope. 

Alec holds hope tighter, kissing the back of his hand, and lays his head against his shoulder.

The fifth time Alec waits for Magnus, he doesn’t even know he’s waiting for him. 

The world crumbles around them in raging fires from the maws of shrieking creatures slipping from a tear in the sky. Alec stands by his sister, smiles at her slightly, _we’re Lightwoods_ , he says, knowing full well that even death cannot pry their names from their hands. And at the end of all this, it may very well be the only thing they have. 

There is another thing death cannot take from Alec.

It’s the thought of Magnus.

They say when you face death, your entire life flashes before your very eyes. 

All Alec sees is Magnus. 

He is what he sees with eyes open, projected over everything around him. He is what he sees with eyes closed, glimmering stars against the backdrop of his eyelids. Alec takes every memory of his life with Magnus and explodes them around him in a whirl of electric blue, playing in unison, softly soothing. 

And Alec watches in gentle wonder. 

If there’s someone who can survive all this, it’s Magnus.

And Alec could die knowing that in a world that is laid to waste, Magnus will persist.

Alec draws his arrows one last time. 

He hears a faint hiss of magic.

The sixth time Alec waits for Magnus, he waits for him with purpose. 

He looks at his hands that slightly shake, and instead of his thumb abusing the bulk of his palm, the tips of his fingers skate against the surface of his engagement ring. He twists softly instead.

“You okay, buddy?” Jace asks from behind, and there’s a knowing smile on his mouth.

Alec laughs softly, shaking his head. “He better show up.”

“You know him,” Jace grins slightly, “He’ll make a grand entrance.”

Alec only half believes the sentiment. Magnus may make his presence known with as much pomp and circumstance he could afford to have, but when it comes to Alec’s heart, he has always been quietly at his door step, gently knocking. 

Today, Alec waits.

He waits for quiet mornings on golden sheets and sunlight slicing into their windows. He waits for two kids, or three, or four, and years of child rearing and being called _dad_ , while Magnus is called _papa_. He waits for the happiest lifetime his mortality can afford him.

He waits for Magnus. 

Alec exhales, breath shaky.

“He better show up.”

He does. 

The gentle boy rejoices.

Alec waits for Magnus one last time. 

He flips a page of a book he seems to have read a thousand times, letting the sunlight slice through the windows and kiss his skin.

Finally, he hears a gentle knock.

“Come in.” Alec calls knowingly.

The knob turns, and finally, the door to their sun-drenched, billowed-curtain apartment swings open. 

Alec smiles.

“Took you long enough.”

Magnus waits at the door. He laughs, wiping tears from his eyes.

“Somebody needed to make sure the boys didn't grow up degenerates.”

Alec is drawn to Magnus more than he walks to him, threads their fingers together, and just like that, his heart is in his throat. There is magic in love like this, Alec thinks.

He takes Magnus in his arms and kisses him softly.

Magnus breathes out, whispers. “How I missed you.”

“And how I love you.” Alec whispers back.

He pulls Magnus by the arm, taking him through the door. 

“Welcome home.”


End file.
